See me This Once A Soul of Grace
by Nicole-Cherre
Summary: The second part to See Me This Once, from- a *different* point of view.


A Soul of Grace  
  
Life is depressing some times. Okay, often. All right, *very* often. My life is so simple but boring and confusing and always too hurried. Anyone who's been there understands what it's like to live your days according to due dates and deadlines, work, homework, classes, soccer practice, and those lonely hours lying in bed wondering why you don't have any friends.  
  
Well I have one, but really, Andrew's just a guy I know, we had one class together, I tutored him in calculus and he invited me to a couple of parties. But he's my only friend. The *only* person I hang out with. I seriously have _no_ life.  
  
So I spend my days planning what needs to be done in the next week, rearranging my schedule to fit my classes and full-time job, not my social life- yeah, right what social life?- like some of my other college and high school associates. My free time is spent working out, at the library, the lab, or at home on my computer or reading and studying.  
  
I'm very much alone. And no one knows me. That, I think, I miss but I'm not sure since I've never had it. No one knows much of anything about me- hell, *I* don't know anything about me! I'm an orphan, my parents were killed in car crash, I don't even know if my real name is Darien Shields for Pete's sake! It was all I remembered, that name. Maybe it was my father's . . . How could I ever know?  
  
Can you see what I'm getting at? No life, no history- and without a past, how can there be a future? What I do have is too dark and depressing to call a life. I don't know how many times I've considered . . . Well, what do I really have to live for anyway? No friends, no family, no one would even notice that I had disappeared, at least not notice and remember twenty-four hours later. Except maybe the guys who always ask me for favors. Like that idiot from the drama college.  
  
'Put on play, what a great idea! It's so *easy*!' Look how that turned out. Sure we made the money we needed, the people were entertained but I never want my name associated with that production- ever. The only up side was conning my Meatball head into helping me out and spending some time with her.  
  
You'd never know it but she's an angel. All innocence and purity, grace and energy . . . She's beautiful and perfect- okay, I know what you're thinking, she's a little young, I'm a little overboard or crazy 'cause Serina just isn't all that.  
  
Ah, but there you're wrong, my friend. She is everything she wants to be- it's not my fault all she let's you see is that klutzy, immature kid. *I've* seen the lady in that girl and she's- perfect.  
  
All right, knock it off, I know I'm head over heels, you'll understand when you're older, okay. Ha. Anyway, three years is not that big a difference anyway. She's fourteen, I'm seventeen. When we're thirty what's that going to matter? When she's twenty-five, who's going to care that I'm twenty-eight? It's none of your business and she is more mature than you might think when it comes to matters of the heart-  
  
No one has EVER known me so thoroughly, so completely, heart and soul, as that girl and all we say to each other are teasing remarks and sarcastic yelling. But she understands me and my pain and I have _no idea_ how. Or why she might care about this jerk. It scares me how well she knows me but it's kind of the okay fear you get when you know you have class in ten minutes but you're so comfortable you're afraid you might fall asleep and miss it. I'm just so comfortable around her I might let something I don't want her- or _anyone_- to know, slip. Like how I feel for her . . .  
  
Anyway, back to my angel and the theater fiasco. I had invited Serina and her gang to help out with the play. I really just wanted her there but they're kind of a set, can't get one without the others. They took off doing something- I don't even remember now. So I was wandering the theater looking for some spare costumes when I thought I heard something and stumbled into a balcony room.  
  
Now that I think about it, I actually _didn't_ hear anything- there was nothing to hear. But something made me notice that door; something drew my attention to that room. I'm used to following my instincts so I, of course, went in ignoring the complete blackness of the room. The end of the world could have been across that threshold and I would have walked right into it- Then again, as Andrew might say, it *was* the end of the world- I fell in love, so far gone my single friends could never save me from myself. If only someone had warned it would be painful- I might have watched my step.  
  
Either way, I followed the faint misty- or dusty- light to the balcony's edge and there spread out before me like a real, life-size fairy story was Serina on stage. The whole theater was dark with that one cone of bright, warm yellow light shining down on her, spotlighting her perfect lithe figure, highlighting her shining golden hair, turning her uplifted, smiling face to gold. She was so perfect . . . I wish you could have been there-  
  
No wait, I don't. That moment was *mine*. No one else can see her that perfect and not fall instantly in love so no one else can see like that besides _me_.  
  
But you'll never guess what the little sprite was doing. She was in the center of that circle of light, face turned up, eyes closed, grinning like a nothing in the world was wrong. A soul that pure shouldn't exist on this earth. It's too dirty for her. She should live in heaven, sit among the stars- And she was spinning. Like a ballerina. One leg raised to her waist and bent a little, her arms out to her side and rising and falling according to her speed. That look of pure happiness is one I don't think I've ever seen before and I know I've never made such a face.  
  
I know she isn't always very- *graceful*, but if you'd seen her at that moment you'd have never believed that dancer was the same clumsy child that races down the street late for class every morning.  
  
She was elegant.  
  
I must have watched for ten full minutes and never noticed the passage of time. She just kept twirling, never stopping, never faltering. I'm sure she noticed me- or maybe not- I don't know. She never stopped or changed anything so maybe she didn't notice me. Either way, when I woke from my trance I smiled; a huge, stupid grin that was probably on my face the whole time. I turned around and marched out of the room intending to run down the stairs to the level of the stage so I could talk to her. I *had* to talk to her! I had to confess and see if she could ever-  
  
But when I got there, two of Serina's friends were walking down the hall- away from me- so I waited for them to disappear around the corner. They didn't need to know about all this, it was just Serina and I, alone, they couldn't understand and I've seen the way Rei fights and teases Serina. I don't want her to go through that if she doesn't have to, not yet.  
  
I dashed into the theater-  
  
It was empty.  
  
Serina was gone.  
  
Oh well, I can wait. I'm patient. I think I've been waiting my whole life anyway. For her, of course. But, I suppose you can tell that by now.  
  
I think I found something to live for. 


End file.
